Happy Birthday, Reta!

If you're not Reta, you can skip this post. Or, if you love seeing our kids sing and dance and you have a birthday sometime in the next year, just substitute your own name in the appropriate places and enjoy the video!

From the Mouth of Babes

Miriam taught her very first Family Home Evening lesson this week. She chose to teach about the life of Christ. We are very proud of all that she knows and understands at a young age. Listen closely for one of our favorite lines when Miriam calls Henry a "silly goose", rather than getting upset with him for messing with her pictures. (note: parts of her lesson have been cut in order to make this video shorter)

The real treat of this video comes at the end when Henry decided he had a few things to teach us about The Fall.

Winter Wonderland

Sunday morning, Miriam and Henry pulled our cookie sheets out of the cupboard and pretended to go sledding around our kitchen. (sorry for the grainy picture and video, but you get the idea)

Little did they know that it would actually snow 7 inches Sunday night and we'd be able to go sledding for real on Monday. Miriam was thrilled!

The Bee Game

For Christmas 2007, Miriam received the "Bee Game". She loved it. We loved to watch her play, but not so much to play with her. And the music definitely needed a mute option. Somewhere along the line, the batteries ran out and whenever Miriam asked if she could play it, we could honestly answer that we didn't have the right kind of batteries("C"). So, for Christmas 2008, Miriam (with zero brainstorming help for us) chose to give Tammy a package of "C" batteries! She is so sweet and thoughtful. Now the Bee Game is up and running again. The music is still too loud, but this year Henry is big enough to play with her, which makes for great fun and lots of laughter.

We hope you enjoy this clip of the Bee Game which also demonstrates a few of the special effect capabilities of our cool, new video editing program.

A New Star Is Born

Henry received this basketball goal for his Christmas present and has taken to it like a pro. Since this video was taken, he has learned to shoot from a distance (not just slam dunk) and has even rebounded (accidentally?) his own missed shot. We're pretty sure we have a star in the making. :)

Who said Christmas was supposed to be Merry?

On Christmas day we were able to have lunch at Alvin's cousins' home in Durham, NC. Elder Seth Van Orden (Alvin's brother) and his companion, who are serving in Durham, were also invited! We had a wonderful time visiting, and are so thankful to the Cutlers for hosting. Unfortunately, the drive home was about 40 minutes of this...


Don't let Miriam's sunglasses fool you, she was just as grumpy as Henry. Merry Christmas to you too!

Santa's Elf

On Christmas Eve, Miriam created the above scene totally on her own and then asked Grandma to push her. When Grandma asked her what they were doing, Miriam said it was Santa's sleigh and she was delivering presents.


We hope you enjoy this funny video! We really don't know where she comes up with these things (especially the use of the nail file as a gift distributor)



(We apologize that so much quality is lost when we upload videos to the blog. We know that watching a blurry, fuzzy picture is slightly annoying, but we figure it's better than nothing)